Item: Darjeeling: A History of the World's Greatest Tea
Rating: 4
Author: MurderByDeath

Darjeeling: A History of the World’s Greatest Tea

Darjeeling: A History of the World's Greatest Tea
by Jeff Koehler
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781408845929
Publication Date: January 1, 2015
Pages: 291
Genre: History, Non-fiction, Plants / Agriculture
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Set against the backdrop of the looming Himalayas and drenching monsoons, this is the story of how Darjeeling developed its tea industry under Imperial British rule and eventually came to produce the world's finest leaves. But today the industry is battling dropping production ,a violent struggle for independent statehood, labour unrest and the devastating effect of climate change. It's the story, too, of the measures being taken to counter these challenges and save India's most exclusive and iconic brew that are nothing short of radical.

A fascinating portrait of the region and a story rich in intrigue and empire, full of adventurers and romance, it illuminates the historic, arcane and changing world of this celebrated tea.

Winner of the 2016 IACP Award: Literary Food Writing

Finished this last night and it was a solid 4 star read for me. It might have been 4.5 save for a dull chapter or two on the colonial history between India and Great Britain. Lots of names, dates, and skirmishes, with back-and-forths between time periods that just made my eyes glaze over. But at 19 chapters, the book had plenty of chapters to make it up to me, and it mostly did.

Written in a ‘feature article’ style, the author frames the book and its chapters within the tea-picking seasons, called flushes. Spring flush, second flush, monsoon flush and autumn flush, tying the trajectory Darjeeling tea finds itself into the advancement of the seasons. These ‘preludes’ to the chapters are written in a flowery, evocative style that mostly works, although at times seems to try a tiny bit too hard.

In general terms the book set out what it meant to do: educate me about tea. As someone whose circulatory system is, at any given time, roughly 75% tea, I was shockingly ignorant about my life’s blood, so the book was destined to succeed. I knew nothing about CTC vs. orthodox teas (CTC is the mechanical process of cut, tear, curl, while orthodox tea is still almost entirely hand processes) and while I’d heard of Darjeeling tea, of course, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you it’s considered the world’s best tea, or that the vast majority of it is certified organic. The importance when it’s picked has on its taste is also going to make it easier for me to find my go-to black teas; I’m pretty sure I’m a solid spring-flush kind of girl.

But what the author really succeeded in, was convincing me of the inherent romance surrounding the growing of teas in spite of all the challenges and barriers: the climate changes, labor issues and a fraught political climate in West Bengal. He touches on all of them in some depth, describing the ways owners are tackling the first two issues and trying to survive the fall out of the third, but still, it’s almost impossible not to imagine these tea gardens as romantic.

If nothing else, the book succeeded as a marketing tool: midway through I found myself online ordering 100g of a tea called “Gold Darjeeling” described by the Tao of Tea as a Light Black Tea, with a smooth, buttery, honey texture. Full-bodied brew with pleasant rose, muscatel grape-like aroma. I’m off two minds about my hopes for this tea: of course I want to like it, but given that you can only buy it by the gram, not so much that it ruins me for all the other black teas out there. Although, as long as I drink iced tea, I doubt I’m in any real danger of becoming the tea snob.

The Haunting of America – DNF @ pg. 105

The Haunting of America
by Joel Martin, William J. Birnes
Rating: ★★
Publication Date: September 15, 2009
Pages: 400
Genre: History, Non-fiction
Publisher: Forge

In the tradition of their Haunting of the Presidents, national bestselling authors Joel Martin and William J. Birnes write The Haunting of America: From The Salem Witch Trials to Harry Houdini, the only book to tell the story of how paranormal events influenced and sometimes even drove political events. In a narrative retelling of American history that begins with the Salem Witch Trials of the seventeenth century, Martin and Birnes unearth the roots of America's fascination with the ghosts, goblins, and demons that possess our imaginations and nightmares. The authors examine the political history of the United States through the lens of the paranormal and investigate the spiritual events that inspired public policy: channelers and meduims who have advised presidents, UFOs that frightened the nation's military into launching nuclear bomber squadrons toward the Soviet Union, out-of-body experiencers deployed to gather sensitive intelligence on other countries, and even spirits summoned to communicate with living politicians.

The Haunting of America is a thrilling exploration of the often unexpected influences of the paranormal on science, medicine, law, government, the military, psychology, theology, death and dying, spirituality, and pop culture.

How do you ruin a book with a name like that? Wrap a textbook in it.

It might not actually be a bad book if one is looking for an anthropological view of superstition and paranormal belief and their effect on the American political system, but I was just looking for some fun and slightly spooky stories about haunting in America. You know, what it says on the tin.

Ah well, another one off the TBR; progress is progress.

Nature’s Explorers: Adventurers Who Recorded the Wonders of the Natural World

Nature’s Explorers: Adventurers Who Recorded the Wonders of the Natural World
by Andrea Hart, Ann Datta, David Williams, Hans Walter Lack, Judith Magee, Sandra Knapp, Simon Werrett
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9780565094645
Publication Date: September 1, 2019
Pages: 240
Publisher: Natural History Museum

Almost a year this book took me to read. I just checked my start date, and if I’d known I was so close, I’d probably have put off finishing it just for the nice, round number. Then again, probably not: the passive guilt of this book sitting on my ‘reading’ pile was wearing me down.

None of that is meant to be a condemnation of the book, so much as a result of the nature of the book itself. Nature’s Explorers is a collection of essays written by a selection of contributors who all either work for the Museum of Natural History, or are closely associated with it. Each essay covers one of history’s great natural explorers and their contribution to science and the arts.

All of the expected players are included: Darwin, Humboldt, Hook, Gould, Audubon, Banks, etc. but there are quite a few lesser known naturalists and explorers too. Two women get essays, including Margaret Elizabeth Fountaine, the late-1800’s lepidopterist who inspired Deanna Raybourne’s character, Veronica Speedwell, in her latest historical mystery series.

As always in a collection of essays written by a variety of people, some are better than others. All are detailed snapshots of the subject’s life and accomplishments, encapsulated in 3-5 pages and surrounded by gorgeous, richly coloured illustrations and reproductions of their work.

A gorgeous book worth owning, but not one to be rushed through.

D-Day Girls (Audio)

D-Day Girls
by Sarah Rose
ISBN: 9780451495105
Published by Crown on April 23, 2019
Genres: History, Military, World War II, Biography & Autobiography, Women, Political Science, Intelligence & Espionage
Pages: 400
three-half-stars

In 1942, the Allies were losing, Germany seemed unstoppable, and every able man in England was on the front lines. To “set Europe ablaze,” in the words of Winston Churchill, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), whose spies were trained in everything from demolition to sharpshooting, was forced to do something unprecedented: recruit women. Thirty-nine answered the call, leaving their lives and families to become saboteurs in France.

In D-Day Girls, Sarah Rose draws on recently declassified files, diaries, and oral histories to tell the thrilling story of three of these remarkable women. There’s Andrée Borrel, a scrappy and streetwise Parisian who blew up power lines with the Gestapo hot on her heels; Odette Sansom, an unhappily married suburban mother who saw the SOE as her ticket out of domestic life and into a meaningful adventure; and Lise de Baissac, a fiercely independent member of French colonial high society and the SOE’s unflappable “queen.” Together, they destroyed train lines, ambushed Nazis, plotted prison breaks, and gathered crucial intelligence—laying the groundwork for the D-Day invasion that proved to be the turning point in the war.

Rigorously researched and written with razor-sharp wit, D-Day Girls is an inspiring story for our own moment of resistance: a reminder of what courage—and the energy of politically animated women—can accomplish when the stakes seem incalculably high.

In the midst of my May Re-Reading Binge, I did manage to finish one new book, and it’s one I’ve been trying to get from my libraries for the last year, at least.

D-Day Girls chronicles the experiences of some of the first women who joined the British war effort in WWII as spies and collaborators with the French Resistance.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite all I’d hoped. Part of the reason might have been the audio format. While the author gave a solid performance, she reads aloud the same way I do, and I don’t like the way I read aloud, because I’m trying to add life to the words and I suck at it. I’m not saying Sarah Rose sucks, but it definitely seemed as though she wasn’t totally comfortable doing it, either. The book’s narrative also jumps around a lot between people, times and places, something I can take in stride when I read, but when I listen, becomes a lot more challenging.

What definitely hurt my rating of this book was the fact that I’d already read/listened to A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell, which chronicles the life of Virginia Hall, another woman who served Great Britain, and then the US, organising and running French Resistance. Purnell covers a few of the other players, but only as they were connected to Virginia Hall, and her time jumps were far less frequent, making it an easier book for me to fall into and one that affected me deeply.

Those two caveats aside, the book is a worthwhile read and Rose’s dedication to her subject comes through clearly in her writing. These women meant something to her beyond being historical subjects, and her efforts to bring them to life for the reader (or listener) shine through, audio or not. While Virginia Hall made it through the war relatively unscathed, these women were not so fortunate, and what they experienced and persevered through (especially Odette), made me want to go fetal in a corner and rock.

Books like this are widely considered Pop History, but I’ve never thought that was an insult; books like these are as important as the academically important History Books, because they remind us that history isn’t just about the wars and the battles and the generals who fought them. It’s about the cultures and societies and people who live through them, and Pop History books about women remind us that women have been stepping up, getting it done, and often giving their lives in the effort, long before Feminism became A Thing, and they’ve been doing it in spite of mens’ efforts to hold them back. That’s what I love about the women of historical importance: they never asked for permission or validation, they just did what needed to be done. And I love these books for bringing them out of obscurity.

I have many heroes of both genders, but almost without exception, the women who are my heroines are the ones that stepped up and led by example, and the D-Day Girls join their ranks.

The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander Von Humboldt

The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science
by Andrea Wulf
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781473628793
Publication Date: October 27, 2015
Pages: 434
Genre: History, Natural Science
Publisher: John Murray

Alexander von Humboldt was an intrepid explorer and the most famous scientist of his age. In North America, his name still graces four counties, thirteen towns, a river, parks, bays, lakes, and mountains. His restless life was packed with adventure and discovery, whether he was climbing the highest volcanoes in the world or racing through anthrax-infected Siberia or translating his research into bestselling publications that changed science and thinking. Among Humboldt's most revolutionary ideas was a radical vision of nature, that it is a complex and interconnected global force that does not exist for the use of humankind alone.

Now Andrea Wulf brings the man and his achievements back into focus: his daring expeditions and investigation of wild environments around the world and his discoveries of similarities between climate and vegetation zones on different continents. She also discusses his prediction of human-induced climate change, his remarkable ability to fashion poetic narrative out of scientific observation, and his relationships with iconic figures such as Simon Bolivar and Thomas Jefferson. Wulf examines how Humboldt's writings inspired other naturalists and poets such as Darwin, Wordsworth, and Goethe, and she makes the compelling case that it was Humboldt's influence that led John Muir to his ideas of natural preservation and that shaped Thoreau's "Walden."

With this brilliantly researched and compellingly written book, Andrea Wulf shows the myriad fundamental ways in which Humboldt created our understanding of the natural world, and she champions a renewed interest in this vital and lost player in environmental history and science.

The Lost Hero of Science is not hyperbole. It’s one of the great tragedies of history that this man’s name is no longer on the tip of every man, woman and child’s tongue (at least in the English speaking world).

I don’t know where to begin, but to put it as concisely as possible, read any headline about environmental science today and Humboldt called it almost 200 years ago. Deforestation: check. Desertification: check. The long term devastation of monoculture: check. Climate change: check. At the more extreme ends, he was calling for the creation of the Panama canal decades before it was a glint in America’s eye and he insisted that even rocks contain life (they do – look it up).

Humboldt was acerbic, impatient, and had a level of energy few can imagine without pharmaceutical assistance. He devoted his life in every way to science and nature, eschewing most personal relationships in favour of relentless study, but he was also generous with his knowledge and money – much to the betterment of the world and the detriment of his finances. He was in almost every way a true hero, as the title claims, and unarguably a role-model for more than just fellow scientists. Without Humboldt we very likely would not have Darwin (Darwin himself said without Humboldt, he would not have found his calling on the Beagle). Without Humboldt we wouldn’t have those lines on weather maps, either (isotherms/isobars).

In short, his life was incredible and Wulf does a better than creditable job illustrating not only his adventures and indefatigable levels of energy, but his impact on the world; not just scientists, but artists, authors, poets and politicians. She writes a very readable narrative and communicates what must have been an enormous amount of information in a way that remains coherent throughout. She remains objective but is never dry or academic. My half-star demerit is only because some of the chapters devoted to others I found less interesting that the star of the book himself.

I’d like to insist that every single person read this book, but realistically… every single person should read this book. For those that enjoy science and history, it’s a definite do-not-miss.

(This was a BookLikes-opoly Free Friday Read for July 7th and was 341 pages (minus the various appendices and index).

Jane Austen Cover to Cover

200 Years of Classic Book Covers
by Margaret C. Sullivan

Published: Nov 11, 2014 by Quirk Books
ISBN: 9781594747250

[star]

I’ve been lusting after this book for a few months now and it finally arrived today. Nothing else got done as I promptly flopped onto the couch and dove it.

There’s more to this book than I originally expected, with thoughtful and sometimes downright snarky commentary about each cover. The quality of the covers in each time period range from tasteful to tasteless to downright tacky and all a lot of fun to look at.

If you are a Jane Austen fan, this one is a keeper, although now I want to go out and search for some of these old editions (the original Peacock edition: yes please!).

Find Jane Austen Cover to Cover at:
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200 Years of Classic Book Covers by Margaret C. Sullivan

200 Years of Classic Book Covers
by Margaret C. Sullivan